


Snowdrops in Spring

by Quecksilver_Eyes



Category: Chronicles of Narnia (Movies), Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, and all that she can remember, and her cherry red smile, and her love, and really is nothing but an English school girl now, anyway, because of course, burial, guess who's sad about the last battle again, hi i have some complaints, mainly about MY TEARS, ok so, susan buries her loves, susan lives in new york it's decided now you can't convince me otherwise, susan pevensie of the nylons the lipstick and the invitations, the character death is canonical, there's also an uncomfortable encounter with a dude, you're right it's me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-13 15:21:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16020647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quecksilver_Eyes/pseuds/Quecksilver_Eyes
Summary: It is 1949, Susan Pevensie buries her loves and her love in the hard English soil and really is nothing but a school girl anymore, the Queen resting somewhere she can't reach.or:Narnia dies. Her friends die with her (That is, all but one, and she will grow old far away, across the sea.) and England buries 5 school children and a married couple, the youngest just 16 years old.





	Snowdrops in Spring

 

Narnia’s crown dies with her, on a cold spring morning, four years after the war ends, Lucy’s head on Peter’s shoulder, laughter on Eustace’ lips, Edmund’s fingers in Lucy’s copper red hair. Mr Pevensie smiles at his children, his wife at his side, his chest swelling with a warmth he doesn’t know, Jill crowds against Eustace’ side and suddenly, the world trips and falls.

Susan buries them. She buries them all together, Aunt Alberta’s fingers on her skin, something she doesn’t recognize rising in her throat as she stares at Lucy and her two good arms, lying motionless and still in her coffin, her hair like golden threads on the itchy Sunday dress she hated so much, as she stares at Edmund, his face slack, his skin smooth and soft, not a crinkle in his good Sunday suit, as she stares at Peter and sees just a boy, his hands open and relaxed, no longer shaking against her cheek, his mouth a thin line, his eyes closed.

Her feet hurt and there’s a run in her nylons at the back of her leg, Aunt Alberta stands next to her, her back straight, her mouth frowning. Uncle Harold worries a handkerchief between his hands and only then does Susan dare look at her parents. George and Helen Pevensie lie furthest from her, her father in his wedding suit, her mother in the new dress Susan brought her from the states – red silk hemmed with white lace. Mother hasn’t worn it once and Susan can still smell the store in its fabric.

She doesn’t listen to the pastor, to the girls who sob into their lipstick or to the boys who talk of great deeds with tumbling, trembling voices. Instead, she looks at the glass stained windows and the snowdrops blooming at her feet. At the first thaw after they came back home from the country, and they’d sat in the grass together, Peter and Lucy swinging branches at each other, Edmund’s shivering hands in Susan’s hair, he’d picked the snowdrops around them and woven them into her braid. Alberta clears her throat behind her.

Cousin Eustace is buried alone, that same afternoon, away from churches and priests and prayers and he is small and pale and bony in his coffin, his hair a stark contrast against the satin and the ironed perfection of his trousers. There are no flourishes, here, his coffin simple and plain.

She doesn’t cry.

She doesn’t cry when they are lowered into the ground, one after the other, she doesn’t cry as Lucy’s classmates sob into her shoulder, she doesn’t cry when the graves are closed and she stands in the silent house that she cannot inherit without a husband.

She doesn’t cry as she sorts through her family’s belongings, mother’s jewellery, father’s uniform, Lucy’s daggers, Peter’s razors, Edmund’s books and makes two piles. One – to sell, and the other – to keep. She keeps the doors open, the windows closed and doesn’t look at the pale hollow thing looking back at her from behind the mirror. Instead, she takes off her shoes and sits on the carpet in the living room, her stomach a pit of pitch black dread.

She doesn’t cry as she flies to the states once more, her mother’s jewellery sold, her lipstick heavy and staining on her lips. Her stomach is in knots, her knuckles white, her bag pressed against her legs and the man next to her has his hands, his eyes, his smile on her flesh. You really are a pretty thing, he says and she just bows her head and thinks of arrows she only ever wielded in her imagination, in games made up for those long nights when the bombs would fall and the world seemed like it would fall, too.

It is only when she steps foot into her flat, her heels a hollow clacking on the wooden floor, her voice a shivering nothing in the cold morning air, that she sinks to her knees and cries. The air is colder here than it was in England, her breath paints clouds of fog into her flat and her bag hits the floor, a heavy sound, loud in her ears.

It is ugly, this crying: heaving sobs and aching cheeks and her voice a rattle in her throat, her hair short on her shoulders, her legs too long and too tumbling against her chest.

It is 1949 and Susan Pevensie has stopped being a sister, sitting on the cold wooden floor in a rundown apartment in New York, her lipstick smeared, her mascara in streaks on her cheeks. It is 1949 and this is how the Gentle Queen’s world ends.


End file.
